Drawer slide assemblies include slides or rails mounted on both the cabinet carcass and the drawer. The slides attached to the drawer cooperate with the slides mounted to the cabinet carcass to allow telescoping extensions while providing support for the drawer. Drawer slides typically are mounted either underneath the drawer or on the sides of a drawer. Both the undermount drawer slide and the sidemount drawer slide styles offer different advantages. A desirable advantage of the undermount drawer slide is that it is not visible when a drawer is open and the slide is extended. To consumers, the appearance of the drawer is enhanced.
Adjustment of the drawer face of a drawer mounted using an undermount drawer slide assembly is also important to appearance. Overcoming misalignment of an installed drawer relative to the cabinet and any adjacent drawers due to manufacturing tolerances is necessary. Adjustments are often necessary in three directions, “horizontal”, “vertical”, and “depth”.
Releasable coupling devices which allow a drawer to be fitted to an extendable rail of a drawer assembly are known in the art.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,913,334 to Weichelt discloses a device for establishing an adjustable connection between a drawer and a furniture guide rail. The device comprises a base part adapted for connection to the drawer and a detent recess adapted for connection to the guide rail. The tolerance between the drawer and the guide rail may be manually adjusted in two directions and the furniture guide rail must include a suitable detent for engagement with the detent recess.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,424,984 to Ritter discloses an apparatus for releasably coupling a drawer to a drawer pull-out guide. The apparatus comprises a holding part which interacts with a mating part of the guide rail. A region of the holding part which comes in contact with the mating part of the guide rail is flexible to compensate any longitudinal play of the drawer in relation to the rail. In addition to the flexible depth compensation, the apparatus provides the capability of a “horizontal” adjustment.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0292465 to Holzer; et al. discloses a coupling device for a drawer. The device comprises a fixing portion mounted to the drawer and a coupling portion for releasably interacting with the guide rail. The device is capable of providing an adjustment in a “vertical” direction and a “horizontal” direction.
However, a simple, cost effective, and easy to operate solution providing a quick, releasable engagement to an existing drawer slide assembly capable of providing three directional adjustments is needed. Further, there is a need for an easily operated undermount drawer slide mounting clip capable of releasably coupling a drawer to a drawer slide assembly and providing three-directional adjustment that can be operated by hand without removing the drawer from the cabinet carcass.